Naming of Colleges Honoring Donnan, Brashiers Highlights NGU Board Meeting
Posted on: February 27, 2026
NGU Board Chair Michael Lord (left), of Mount Pleasant, speaks with Trustee Lee Capell, of Irmo.
Tigerville, SC—Honoring two legendary Greenville County leaders in education and business, North Greenville University’s Board of Trustees unanimously approved new naming for the institution’s College of Humanities and Sciences and College of Health Sciences during the board’s winter meeting February 26 on the Tigerville campus.
Dr. M.C. Donnan, North Greenville’s chief executive from 1928-1962, is the namesake of the M.C. Donnan College of Humanities and Sciences. Noted Upstate philanthropists and long-time NGU supporters T. Walter and Christine Brashier are the namesakes of the university’s T. Walter & Christine M. Brashier College of Health Sciences. Walt Brashier, a real estate developer, died in March 2021 at the age of 86.
The board action, which will become effective June 1, 2026, creates the first two named colleges for North Greenville. The university operates six academic colleges, including the College of Business and Entrepreneurship, the College of Christian Studies, the College of Communication and Fine Arts, and the College of Education.
NGU’s administration recommended the naming of the two academic colleges based on the roles Dr. Donnan and Mr. and Mrs. Brashier have had in the university’s history. Murphree C. Donnan, a Greer native, was the last principal of North Greenville Baptist Academy when the institution was a grade-school, and the first president when it became North Greenville College in 1934, offering two-year degrees.
NGU President Dr. Gene C. Fant, Jr., noted that the institution’s board in 1963 sought to change the name from North Greenville Junior College to “Donnan College,” but the retiring president asked the trustees not to do so.
“I’m excited about this because it is something the board wanted to do more than 60 years ago, and though it is not the institution’s name, but the college’s, it honors someone so connected to the university who should be honored,” said the president in discussing the proposed change.
The naming of the Brashier College of Health Sciences is a re-designation of the Brashier Graduate School, which was created in 2006 with the couple’s leadership investment. The Brashiers donated a building to house the program on North Pleasantburg Drive in Greenville and that site opened in 2014 as the Tim Brashier Center. The school moved to its current home, the Tim Brashier Campus, 405 Lancaster Avenue in Greer, in 2017. With restructuring of varied graduate degree programs to coordinate with specific NGU academic colleges, the growth of graduate programs in health sciences, and an increasing number of undergraduate students pursuing pre-professional degrees, NGU created the College during the 2024-25 academic year.
“We recommend that the Brashier School be elevated to College status and be attached to the re-named and expanded College of Health Sciences, creating the T. Walter & Christine M. Brashier College of Health Sciences,” President Fant told the board. “This is a recognition of Dr. and Mrs. Brashier’s strategic vision for the university, and a positioning of the university’s academic programs for new visibility. The Brashier family’s financial support for our mission spans seven decades.”
The college houses NGU’s largest graduate program and is the highest growth area right now, Dr. Fant added.
Board Chair Michael Lord recognized that the meeting marked the tenth winter trustees meeting for NGU President Dr. Gene C. Fant, Jr. The board elected Dr. Fant as the university’s eighth president in February 2017, and he officially began presidential duties on June 1, 2017.
“You are about to enter your tenth year,” said Lord, a Mount Pleasant businessman and NGU alumnus. “As far as I’m concerned, you will be at the halfway point of your presidency.”
“We have had a strong start to the spring semester,” Dr. Fant said in his report to the board. “We set a record in graduate enrollment; this is the first time we have had more than 300 in graduate programs.”
In other business, the board unanimously approved conferring degrees on students scheduled to graduate May 8 at NGU’s Spring Commencement. Trustees also received reports on the university’s administrative and academic programs.
An update was given on the institution’s strategic plan, NGU2030: Building for the Future, a five-year plan addressing all areas of the university’s mission of Christ-centered higher education.
The winter board meeting was the first for five new trustees who were elected to five-year terms at the South Carolina Baptist Convention’s annual meeting in November. The new board members include Lee Dillard, from Spartanburg, Joshua Morton, from Simpsonville, Dr. Will Beacham, from Travelers Rest, Dr. Ashley Barnes, from Erhardt, and Shana Sands, from Greenville.
